Philosophy
Philosophy may seem like an out of place thing to find on a technology web site.
It is important to grasp why things are done instead of blindly doing them. Taking a holistic view of the space we occupy is critical when making decisions. Without such grounding, decisions are aimless and tend to be indeterminate.
- Some Thoughts on BackupsI)Introduction This has been covered a lot of times and a lot of places, but since I had an incident the previous Sunday (as of this writing) where my desktop ate its home partition after a power outage I figured it was a good time to write about backups since they were fresh on my mind. The 3-2-1 rule is simple and fundamental to backups. You have no less than 3 copies of your data, stored in 2 different forms and 1 off site backup. Although there are more standards that can be integrated, this is a good safe start… Read more: Some Thoughts on Backups
- Less is more; Do you really need that feature?I was writing the first of my TrueNAS API Integration posts when I wrote a statement that hit me: “It is critically important that any API keys in files have absolute minimum permissions. You are storing a password to your storage system on a server. I’ll say that I feel like this integration is taken for granted in a lot of systems, even at an enterprise level. An increase in the surface area available is unavoidable when automating. A robust set of user roles as above is a fantastic idea. I personally would strongly advise 600 permissions on the API key file… Read more: Less is more; Do you really need that feature?
- The best technology does not mean business success
When I worked for EMC, they released a product called DSSD. It was a storage array that produced 10 million 4K IOPS in 2016 and claimed an impressive 100GB/s bandwidth. Networking was via PCI Express made via 1, 2, 3, or 4M cables and custom PCI Express cards. You could access it as regular storage, or for maximum performance use the built in Flood API. You can read about DSSD in detail here. The raw specs are still impressive today, although we have certainly moved on. EMC spent a billion dollars buying DSSD, millions more more bringing it to maturity… Read more: The best technology does not mean business success - Why the technology triangle is importantA lot of people have heard of “The Golden Triangle” or the “Technology Triangle.” It is simply the concept that for an group to succeed in having functional IT, three things must be functioning in harmony:People, Process and Technology. Why is this? People build things, they have manners by which they build things and what they build is technology. This leads to what amounts to a three legged stool. If one leg is shorter than another, it leans and is awkward. If you have a leg missing, the stool falls over. People: People implement technology and create process. They make… Read more: Why the technology triangle is important